Sonnet LXVIII
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,Before these bastard signs of fair were born,Or durst inhabit on a living brow;Before the golden tresses of the dead,The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,To live a second life on second head;Ere beauty’s dead fleece made another gay:In him those holy antique hours are seen,Without all ornament, itself and true,Making no summer of another’s green,Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;And him as for a map doth Nature store,To show false Art what beauty was of yore.
Words in this poem
- yore adv.
- In time long past; in old time; long since. [OE. , yare, , AS. geára;akin to geár a year, E. year. Year.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet LXVIII is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shakespeare's Sonnets, Project Gutenberg ebook #1041; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Shakespeare, Sonnet LXVIII, in The Sonnets (1609), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1041, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shakespeare-sonnets/sonnet-68.html, id L00086.
Form and metre
Sonnet LXVIII is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGG, the pattern of the English sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.9 syllables.
See other English sonnets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABCDCDEFEFGG outwornA · nowB · bornA · browB · deadC · awayD · headC · gayD · seenE · trueF · greenE · newF · storeG · yoreG
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn, | 10 | ·········· |
| When beauty lived and died as flowers do now, | 10 | ·/˘····/·· |
| Before these bastard signs of fair were born, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Or durst inhabit on a living brow; | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| Before the golden tresses of the dead, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| The right of sepulchres, were shorn away, | 9 | ·······˘/ |
| To live a second life on second head; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Ere beauty’s dead fleece made another gay: | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| In him those holy antique hours are seen, | 10 | ···/˘˘//·· |
| Without all ornament, itself and true, | 10 | ···/˘˘˘/·· |
| Making no summer of another’s green, | 10 | /˘·/˘·˘/˘· |
| Robbing no old to dress his beauty new; | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| And him as for a map doth Nature store, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| To show false Art what beauty was of yore. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.